1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a pedestrian airbag apparatus having an airbag configured to cover an upper surface region of a cowl and front surface regions of left and right front pillars upon completion of inflation.
2. Background Art
Conventionally, as a pedestrian airbag apparatus, one has been known in which an airbag thereof includes, upon completion of inflation, a transversal inflation portion arranged substantially along a left and right direction to cover an upper surface extending from a rear end of a hood panel to a lower portion of a front wind shield arranged on a rear side of the hood panel, and two longitudinal inflation portions adapted to extend from both ends of the transversal inflation portion toward the rear side and to cover front surfaces of left and right front pillars. In such a conventional pedestrian airbag apparatus, the transversal inflation portion of the airbag includes partitions intermittently formed substantially along the left and right direction, and gas communication passages penetrated in a front and rear direction in regions between the partitions, and thus an inner region of the transversal inflation portion is partitioned into transversal cell sections arranged side by side in the front and rear direction. Also, in the airbag, a gas inlet connected to an inflator is arranged on the front transversal cell section arranged on the front side, and the front transversal cell section is configured to cover an upper surface of the rear end of the hood panel upon completion of inflation (e.g., see JP-A-2006-327360). In addition, according to the conventional airbag, a tether is arranged to be connected to a storage portion at a location near a connection region of the transversal inflation portion to the longitudinal inflation portions, thereby limiting a spacing distance from the storage portion.
[Patent Document 1] JP-A-2006-327360
However, in such a conventional pedestrian airbag apparatus, the partitions for partitioning the transversal inflation portion are not arranged on regions in front of the longitudinal inflation portions, and thus an inflation gas flowed into the front transversal cell section from the gas inlet is directly introduced into the longitudinal inflation portions from both left and right ends of the front transversal cell section. Therefore, even if the tether is arranged at such a location near the connection region of the transversal inflation portion to the longitudinal inflation portions to limit a spacing distance from the storage portion, because the inflation gas is directly introduced into the longitudinal inflation portions from both left and right ends of the front transversal cell section upon initial inflation of the airbag, it is difficult to inhibit regions (regions on outer edge sides in a vehicle width direction) on proximal portion sides of the longitudinal inflation portions from floating from the storage portion, and accordingly, there is room for improvement in terms of quickly deploying the longitudinal inflation portions while inhibiting floating or fluttering.
Accordingly, in order to solve the above problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a pedestrian airbag apparatus, in which longitudinal inflation portions can be inhibited from floating from a storage portion or from fluttering upon deployment and inflation of an airbag, thereby quickly covering front surfaces of front pillars.